Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts said it was "surreal" when Donald Trump took aim at his mother this week over her contributions to an anti-Trump political action committee, but made it clear the family isn't running scared.
"It’s a little surreal when Donald Trump threatens your mom," Ricketts told reporters Wednesday during spring training,
according to The Chicago Sun-Times.
Ricketts' mother, Marlene, wife of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, was disclosed in campaign-finance reports filed over the weekend as a $3 million-contributor to the anti-Trump Our Principles PAC.
Upon hearing about the contribution, Trump took to Twitter.
"I hear the Rickets family, who own the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $'s against me. They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!" the boisterous billionaire
wrote on Monday.
Many reporters noted that Marlene's contributions were not exactly secret, and that the standard government filings even show what the money was used for: anti-Trump ads and mailers in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.
Tom Ricketts himself seemed to be amused by the tweet. The family, he said, lives fairly transparently. His sister even earned headlines as one of the first openly gay owners of a professional sports team years ago.
"The fact is whether it’s my mom or my dad on his Ending Spending stuff or my sister on marriage equality or my brothers on what they do, or what we do with the team, we’re pretty much an open book. We stand up for what we believe in. We support the causes we think are important. And that’s what America should be. That’s who we are," he said.
"Look, if we had something to hide, you guys would have found it by now, I’m sure."
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